Our Rating

Not Yet Rated Avg. User Rating

These days it’s hard to find anything in the RPG genre that isn’t described as “cookie-cutter”. Lost princess, boy turned into a man during his quest or an evil empire threatening to take over the world are all cliches that most RPG fans are pretty tired of now. BioWare is a company that isn’t afraid to break free from the mold while keeping the beloved gameplay aspects intact and they do exactly that with Dragon Age: Origins.

From the surface, yes, Dragon Age looks like yet another western RPG. Yes, there are a few RPG cliches thrown into the mix as well. It’s the execution of these cliches that sets the game apart. The story is gripping, deep, intellectual and mature. The developers had no qualms in throwing in aspects of political strife, the brutality of caste systems and well as prostitution into the story – the amazing part is none of these feel forced or juvenile. The other amazing thing is that the game doesn’t force you to deal with these issues if you don’t feel like it. You wanna be a jerk and tell everyone to piss off? Go ahead, the story will still progress.

The main storyline “goal” of the game is pretty standard. There is a war happening, the darkspawn forces are approaching with the rebirth of the Arch-Demon and you, as a Grey Warden, are destined (or forced, depending on how you view the story) to defeat it. Where the game differs from all the rest is how each tale begins. Depending on the race, class, and background you choose for your characters, you are presented with a different “Origin” story. These Origin stories are roughly about 2-3 hours long and detail the events leading up to you becoming a Grey Warden. Choose a Mage character and you’ll start off in the Circle of Magi, right before your test to become a true Mage. Choose a Dwarf commoner and you’ll be bossed and pushed around by the nobles during your Origin story. This adds for a decent bit of replay value as well as tying in various plotlines of different Origins, leading to a few “Oh, that’s why he/she is like that” moments. Touching upon what was stated earlier, how you go about your life after the Origin story is in your hands. You want to do things that piss off your party members and send them packing? So be it, just don’t ask for their help later. Your also free to go about questing in the lands pretty freely, although it’s more of a “I’d rather help the Elves first and then the Dwarves” type deal.

Combat is done in a pseudo-realtime fashion which will be immediately familiar to fans of the Neverwinter Nights or Baldurs Gate series. You can play it like an action RPG, close up in a third person view, letting your party members either handle themselves or switching to them occasionally to make sure they are using the skills you need or potting at the right times. You can play it like a strategy game, zooming out to get a good view of the battlefield and pausing momentarily to queue up a skill for each party member. It all feels very good and fluid on a keyboard and mouse if your used to this type of game – if not, there is a bit of learning curve, but nothing you couldn’t wrap your head around in an hour or so. If you choose not to be the chessmaster in the battle and let your party members fend for themselves, you can visit the Tactics menu and set various orders for your party members to follow in specific situations. These work fairly well for the most part although it’s easy enough to make a mistake and have all of your health/mana pots gone by an overzealous drinker before you realize it and make the tactics change.

Battles tend to scale well, although there are a few wild swings in difficulty. That’s not to say that this game is easy by any means. To put it into perspective, BioWare recently patched up the game to make the “Easy” difficulty setting easier – when was the last time you heard that an “Easy” mode was simply too hard? Most enemies you’ll mow down with little to no difficulty as long as your party is set up evenly and your gearing up decently; when you do encounter that first really difficult battle, you do get a genuine sense of accomplishment after whittling down the enemies health until it’s on the ground, usually along with a nice kill animation. Part of the difficulty of the game is due to the lack of supplies in the world – the game explains a bit why supplies are low, but if you don’t manage your inventory you’ll find yourself knee deep in a battle, your healer dead, and no health pots to get you through that last leg towards victory. Potion making fixes the problem slightly but the crafting system is more of an afterthought with all the other events going on around you. Better gear tends to drop off of higher level mobs, usually optional such as a High Dragon, but in the end it’s well worth it, considering that most of the gear you’ll find will be marginally better, if at all, from the current stuff you are wearing.

The graphics in the game are generally top notch assuming you have a fairly good PC with a recent graphics cards, but with any PC game your mileage may vary depending on your setup. The environments are well done, but nothing awe inspiring. Character models for the main characters, which includes party members and major plotline characters, are very well done. You’ll notice the occasional glitch in lip movement as they speak, which tends to give the game a dubbed look, but it doesn’t take away from the overall presentation of the game. Generic stand-in characters tend to be a bit…well, generic, but that’s to be expected. Not everything is perfect with the graphics however – you’ll occasionally see flat textures on the floor and the walls and random glitches like NPCs speaking to you and facing the other direction. These are all small gripes that are fairly easy to get past and with the constant patching, I’m sure they will disappear in time. The armor and weapon designs in the game are fantastic. Leather armor looks like leather armor and plate armor looks like plate armor. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal but when you’ve played games where the general bulk of your character really doesn’t change despite the protection level of their armor it becomes something you don’t take for granted. The sound is a bit of a mixed bag. While I’m in love with the well scripted and voiced dialogue, the same can’t be said for the repetitive music. I know a few people who adore the score and think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, I personally turned it down as it didn’t really hit home with me.

Dragon Age is definitely a vast game and if your looking for bang for your buck, you won’t be disappointed. You’ll pour hours into the game without really noticing how much time you really are spending, and when you look at your overall progress, you’ll be amazed at how little you’ve actually completed. The main campaign spans dozens of hours and that doesn’t even include any of the DLC content. The difficulty level and micro-managing inventory and party members is certainly something that isn’t for everyone, but if you can look past those aspects you’ll be very satisfied with your purchase. While the game isn’t perfect, it does so many things so well that it places itself in the upper echelon of RPGs.